Fuel cells convert chemical energy of fuels into electricity. In some types of fuel cells hydrogen and an oxidant are used as the basic fuels in a set of complementary chemical reactions yielding electricity as one product. Theoretically, the only products of such reactions are electricity, heat and water. In reality, a number of practical factors affect the efficiency of the reactions, and, as a consequence, other undesirable by-products are also produced.
The development of a fuel cell requires rigorous testing to ensure that all of the reaction products produced can be predictably regulated during the foreseen operation of the fuel cell. Several testing systems have been developed for this purpose. An exemplary testing system is provided in U.S. application Ser. No. 10/244,609, which was incorporated by reference above. This testing system can be used to carry out trials during which process and operating parameters for a fuel cell are purposefully varied to mirror foreseen use and abuse.
A long-term trial may be stopped short due to breached alarm thresholds built into a testing system's safety controls. If one of the alarm thresholds is crossed during a trial a safety control mechanism included in the testing system may act to terminate the trial, even though corrective action may reverse alarm conditions in some scenarios. Such stoppages can severely slow down progress during the development of a fuel cell design and/or other systems concurrently being deigned to co-operate with it.